Saudi Arabia’s bold $600 billion AI initiative, powered by U.S. tech leaders NVIDIA and AMD, transforms global tech alliances. With relaxed U.S. chip export rules boosting Gulf capabilities, the Global South must swiftly recalibrate strategies to compete in the new AI power landscape.
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Saudi Arabia’s bold $600 billion AI initiative, powered by U.S. tech leaders NVIDIA and AMD, transforms global tech alliances. With relaxed U.S. chip export rules boosting Gulf capabilities, the Global South must swiftly recalibrate strategies to compete in the new AI power landscape.
As President Donald Trump stepped onto the gilded stage of Riyadh’s Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum on May 13, 2025, the world witnessed a tectonic shift in the global AI order. Flanked by NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang and AMD’s Lisa Su, Trump presided over the unveiling of one of the most aggressive regional technology plays since China’s AI national strategy was announced in 2017. At the centre of it all was the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a country traditionally known for oil exports rather than chip manufacturing. It announced $600 billion in United States aligned technology investments to position itself as a global leader in artificial intelligence infrastructure and semiconductor capability.
The headlines were hard to ignore. Humain, the newly minted AI firm chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and bankrolled by the Public Investment Fund, would soon receive 18,000 of NVIDIA’s most powerful Blackwell chips. AMD pledged $10 billion in infrastructure. Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s decision to relax chip export controls for Saudi Arabia—while tightening the screws on China—reframed AI as a new frontier of economic diplomacy. This wasn’t just another Gulf megaproject; it was a declaration.
Watch as President Donald Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman formalise a $600 billion tech and economic agreement between the United States and Saudi Arabia at the Royal Court in Riyadh, recorded on 13 May 2025.
The significance of Saudi Arabia’s “AI factory” ambitions—500 megawatts of GPU-powered compute—ripples far beyond its borders. In Southeast Asia, Thailand’s recent deal with NVIDIA to establish AI training centers and chip development capabilities looks suddenly prescient. The country, often overshadowed by regional tech giants like Singapore and South Korea, has made strategic moves to couple U.S. partnerships with homegrown capability building. Bangkok’s ambition: become the ASEAN data corridor for AI-driven industries.
Australia, meanwhile, stands at a critical inflection point. With stable governance, abundant renewable energy, and proximity to the Asia-Pacific AI supply chain, it is strategically positioned to lead AI development in the region by leveraging clean energy and strong U.S. technology partnerships. Global tech titans such as Amazon Web Services, Google, and Microsoft are already injecting billions into Australian data center infrastructure. However, the size and scope of the Saudi announcement shifts the benchmark—500 megawatts is a moonshot for Australian developers still calibrating their post-pandemic real estate portfolios.
Beyond the headlines, the strategic calculus is shifting. The Gulf’s enthusiastic embrace of U.S. chip technology—free from the export bans Washington has imposed on Beijing—poses a critical question for middle powers across the Global South: if the United States is prepared to arm one ally with the computational weapons of the future, who else will be invited to the table?
Thailand and Australia now face a choice: They can accelerate regulatory reform and build sovereign AI capabilities—or risk trailing behind as Saudi-backed GPU cities rise from the desert. Both countries have already made quiet but deliberate moves. Thailand is pushing forward with its Eastern Economic Corridor Digital Park and has signed strategic partnerships with NVIDIA. Australia, meanwhile, is seeing major momentum: NextDC is expanding edge facilities, Goodman Group is developing over 500MW in data centre capacity across Sydney and Melbourne, and AirTrunk is preparing to add nearly 490MW to its already formidable 755+MW Data Centre fleet. CSIRO’s national AI roadmap has laid the groundwork, but the moment now demands decisive escalation.
Yet in the face of Saudi Arabia’s ambitions, these steps may prove incremental. With the Gulf transitioning from petrodollars to petabytes, and “data embassies” being floated as sovereign carve-outs within hyperscale infrastructure, the geopolitical architecture of the AI age is being redrawn—one data hall at a time.
As Google, Oracle, and Salesforce move billions into the Gulf—and as talks of “data embassies” hint at a post-sovereign data infrastructure future—smaller nations will need to think bigger. This may include regional AI alliances, talent exchanges, and co-investment in sovereign compute. The Kingdom has just redefined the stakes. The global south is watching.
And while Canberra’s re-elected Labor government focuses on the transition to clean energy, it must now confront the next phase of industrial strategy: will Australia be a builder of sovereign AI capacity—or merely a host for someone else’s infrastructure?
The urgency is unmistakable. If the Global South seeks to remain a stakeholder in the frontier economy, regional alliances, talent mobility, and investment in sovereign compute capacity are not just ambitions—they are survival strategies.
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Sam Altman and Elon Musk, once allies and now AI rivals, just surprised the tech world. Altman extended a public olive branch, calling for friendship and unity over AGI’s future. Could this mark a turning point in their feud? Industry eyes now turn to Musk’s next move.
This special overview introduces The Humanoid Arms Race, a five-part series on the rise of AI-powered humanoid robots. Explore how these technologies are transforming economies, reshaping labor, and challenging global power structures.
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